


Forget Me Not

by andrasteshaircurlers



Series: Tales Of A Theirin Bastard And His Thorned Rose In Leather Armor [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrasteshaircurlers/pseuds/andrasteshaircurlers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day he brings her roses... but now they come with pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

Torania Cousland Theirin’s hands shake as she carefully lifts the roses from the vase beside their bed. It’s Antivan, the vase. An anniversary gift from Zevran. The queen of Ferelden looks at the roses in her hand, they haven’t even begun to wilt. They are only from yesterday after all. She feels a tear run down her cheek before she can stop it. No mustn’t cry. She wipes it away. Then she leaves their room. Torania walks past the reports she has been filling out and past the rooms of the private quarters. She disposes of the roses in the kitchen. Rose cakes are a common delicacy now.

And then Torania goes to wait by the entrance to the garden. Her hands rub on the wood of the wall. As she holds them behind her, waiting.  She thinks she has actually worn it down a bit by now.

Then Alistair comes in from the garden. Today the roses he had in his hands are both white and red. She smiles at him.

“Look I um… I don’t know if this is the right way to say this…” He begins. “But you know they keep telling me I’m king now…  Do you… do you want to run away with me? And be my wife? Or we could skip the whole wife thing… I don’t know… “

“Alistair…” she begins tucking a strand of whiteish grey hair back into it’s  appropriate ponytail “I already am.”

The smile that lights up his face is enough to make her burst into tears.

Alistair looks upset and startled. “What’s wrong?” He moves closer to comfort her instinctively.

“I’m happy” Torania lies to him. She swore she would never lie but now...

“No… no you’re not…” He pulls her closer and she presses her wrinkled face into his chest.

“I will be.” She finally tells him. “I have a vase for the flowers back in our room.”

He watches her with a concerned expression as they walk back to their rooms.  As they enter the bedroom he sees it. A single rose tucked partway under their bed, as if it had fallen from the vase before.

“Wife….” He begins. “How many times have I forgotten you?”

She looks at him and for a moment she struggles to speak. “Agata… our healer said it was something… your mind… it was… with age… it started with little things…. I…”

“How many times have I forgotten you?” He takes her hands in his and looks deeply into her black eyes as if he could see the answer just by staring.

“forty-seven” She whispers. “forty seven times.”

“And you have been doing this every time?”

“Yes.” Her whisper is so low it is almost inaudible.

He looked at her for a long moment before speaking “Don’t worry” He finally assures her. “It won’t happen again.”

“Alistair there is no cure! I looked! I searched!”

“I know”

Perhaps her mind refuses to process what that means, because it’s not until she wakes up the next morning by his cold pale body that Torania realizes that that had been her last chance to ask him to keep going. To tell him having him here was so much better than not having him at all. The queen’s cry cuts through the palace like a knife blade, stabbing into the hearts of everyone who hears it.

And it is no surprise to anyone when the queen’s heart gives out the very next day.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by
> 
> http://andrasteshaircurlers.tumblr.com/post/135936380291


End file.
